10 tiny tweaks that can improve your life

These simple changes take
minimal effort, and will give your happiness a big
boost.Oli Scarff/Getty
Images

When it comes to living a productive, healthy life, sometimes
little things can make a big difference.

Here are 10 of my favorite simple changes that take minimal
effort, but can help establish those good habits we all want to
have.

1. Get a real alarm clock

Many people now use their smart phones as their alarm clocks.
There are several problems with this strategy.

First, it means you keep your smart phone in your bedroom, which
means it's easy to scroll around before bed (instead of reading,
spending time with your partner, or going to sleep already).

Second, the iPhone has a very easy snooze feature, which makes it
tempting to hit snooze. This is basically never a good idea.
Snooze sleep is lousy sleep, and burns up willpower over what is
a foregone conclusion. You will get up eventually!

Finally, when you do get up and turn off the alarm, you have your
smart phone in your hand, which makes it easy to start the day
with emails and other such things that should happen later. If
you get a dumb alarm clock that you put across the room, and that
you have to reset to snooze, you'll probably just get up, and you
won't spend the morning in reaction mode.

2. Give yourself a bed time

Mornings are relatively regimented for people, but evenings are
all over the map. Giving yourself a bedtime gives you a framework
for the evening that ensures enough sleep. You can stay up later
— you are a grown up, after all — but then you need to justify to
yourself why you're doing it, acknowledging that the time you are
blowing past is the time you should go to bed to feel best in the
morning.

My bedtime is 10:30 p.m. I need a bare minimum of 6.5 hours of
sleep, and I like to have 7.5. Since the 2-year-old gets up
somewhere between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m., a 10:30 p.m. bedtime
ensures the next day doesn't fall apart.

3. Track books and workouts

When I ask people what they'd like to spend more time doing, the
most popular answers (by far!) are exercising and reading. Since
what gets measured gets done, I recommend keeping logs of these
two activities. I have a running log and a log of books read, and
I really enjoy seeing both lists get longer. The reading log in
particular inspires me to ask what I will read next.

4. Write tomorrow's to-do list right before quitting
time

We tend to have more focus and motivation in the morning, so if
you know what your most important tasks are for any given day,
and roughly when you'll do them, you can spend your energy on
execution, rather than deciding what deserves your attention (and
mistaking your inbox for your priority list). Making a list for
tomorrow is a good way to wind down any given workday. Even if
something is undone, you know when it will get done, which can
help you relax at night.

5. Use airplane mode

In my recent time perception survey, which will become part of
"Off the Clock," one of the most shocking discoveries was the gap
in phone checks per hour between people who feel relaxed about
time, and people who feel anxious. I think a lot of phone
checking is unconscious. You're somewhat bored, so you pull it
out, or you want to see what time it is, and next thing you know
you've gone on an Instagram bender.

Putting the phone on airplane mode solves all those
problems. You still have it if you need to make a call or check
email, and you can see the time, but you have to make a conscious
choice to connect. Usually it isn't worth it.

6. Keep a bottle of water on your desk

I realize the literature on drinking x, y, or z glasses of water
per day is mixed. However, keeping a water bottle on your
desk does a few good things. First, you'll probably drink less
soda or juice because your stomach has only so much liquid
capacity, and second, the process of refilling the bottle and
going to the restroom will force you to stand up and move every
hour or two during the day, and the literature on too much
sitting is more compelling.

7. Use your calendar for reminders

Many things in life must be thought of at non-obvious times. You
admire your neighbor's lovely tulips in April, but the bulbs must
be planted in the fall. Unfortunately, there is no obvious
trigger in October to think to do that.

So, when you think of it in April, put it on your calendar in
October to think about it then. My daughter's birthday is in
October, and she recently asked for something for it. I have no
idea if she'll still like that toy then, but I put a note on my
calendar 10 days before her birthday, so when I'm thinking about
what I want to get her, I'll have that suggestion, which I never
would have remembered otherwise.

8. Keep sunscreen by your toothbrush

Most people remember to brush their teeth in the morning. Far
fewer people remember to put sunscreen on their faces, hands,
necks, and other exposed skin. Putting the bottle right there by
the sink makes it easier to take 20 seconds to make it happen.

9. Make fruits and veggies easy

Is a pre-made salad more expensive than a head of lettuce? Of
course, and pre-cut pineapple is pricier than getting a whole
pineapple. But if the lettuce and the pineapple go bad without
you eating them, because every time you look in the fridge and
see them it looks like a lot of work, then you haven't saved
money. Go ahead and buy the easier versions.

Brian Wansink's research suggests keeping produce
on your shelves in the fridge, rather than in the drawers. You're
not trying to preserve it longer. You're trying to see it so you
eat it.

10. Reach out to one person daily

Networking is one of those things we all know we should do, but
feel meh about, possibly because it implies cocktail parties
where you talk to people who are constantly looking over your
shoulder trying to find someone more important to talk to. Yuck.

So, a different approach, recommended by networking expert
Molly
Beck: Reach out to one person daily. Send an email to someone
you want to renew ties with (former colleague, old friend), or
create ties with (new person you just met, person who wrote an
interesting article in your field). One person a day is totally
doable, especially since you could repeat people. This takes less
than 10 minutes, but over time it builds a really powerful
network.